Robert Wyatt's "Cancion de Julieta": built on, travels on an uprightbass riff, which carefully adjusts itself, then tilts forward, like arocking horse that almost gets stuck on a surreal extention of a bent(fifth?) some blues note or I should say blu-u-ues note, groaning alittle, deliberately distended, before the last note, beforetherocking horse pilgrim tilts back into place. And Wyatt sings thesame melisma, much higher, like a little old man with a hole in hishead and the air pushing out and in, which is true of course, like alittle old man in a poem or a play, under the radar or trying to bethat way, in his mask (from Comicopera, and Wyatt explains he meansthat album's title in the oldest school sense, the other side oftragedy, but useful, a working piece of uniform), his parody, with thewell-timed well-pulled tear in his blues, giving just enough pause tothe listener (and even a sympathetic listener can stop listening ifthe music seems too familiar, like this track never does; I keeplistening to hear what happens next, even though I "basically" orschematically know, but it's the feeling of the listening experiencethat matters here, like it always should). Also, it's not just a masketc in the defensive sense, or defensive in the wait for 'em to comeat you sense; the little old rocking horse rider isn't just findingaway to keep his place, he's somehow pushing forward, each repetitionof the basic riff brings some other sounds too, which suggest he'sbreaking into something, pushing forward, into wreckage, the hull of agalleon maybe (kind of an underwater moonlit quality). The bass playeris also using his bow, and overdubbing violins, scrabbling at thepush, in the push. (Wyatt also plays some kind of keyboard,percussion, pocket trumpet, all in the arc and pull and push of thesway of the note). "Un mar de sue-eh-eh, no. Un mar de tierra blanca,"so not just aquatic and doesn't just sound aquatic, but like he'sentering the water, rocking back and forth and farward. Just anothersleepwalker? They can do a lot. Leading where all listeners might beled toward making their own connections, if they want, to any possibledeeper waters. Either way, the song will keep going (not too earnest,no time for that). It's just the damndest track, is all, first listenevery listen.Sort of with the same effect is Ultra Living's version of OrnetteColeman's "Skies of America." Composed for symphony orchestra, hereit's transcribed in 6/8 for three-part harmonies of guitars, thensaxes; bass and drums come to lead the way, eventually, maybe always.Nothing like any Prime Time track I've heard, although to playOrnette's themes you have to use his pitches, so to that extent soundslike him, but the guitars are fuller, more detailed in texture thanPrime Time, and more single-minded than Blood Ulmer's playing withOrnette, but they do have some of Blood's rattling, once they stickit in. The saxes have a hard-won fatalism that gets dirgey at onepoint, but keeps building poise without letting go of any blues, orgoing bravura on us (well not too much). Not just about paying thosedues and maintaining your gnarly cool though, because the bass anddrums, like the opening guitars, are gouging steps in the side ofsomething, a ravine, judging by the size and shape of echo.Engagement, and roughness and enlightment and skills choppingroughness, finding its own way forward, like Wyatt's song. (This oneis from an Anthology Recordings reissue of Ultra Living'sTransgression, first released in 2000.) Zigmat's "Turn Out," from their self-titled, self-released debut,also finds its own way forward, maybe toward the edge or center or farwall of another ravine. Female vocalist and new wave combo, but theyseem to have learned what Blondie once knew from 70s crossroad ofarena (call it metal emphasis, more than rhetoric) punk, disco andpre-disco girl drama—not "diva," she sounds plainer than that, not"girl group," not much overdubbed harmonies, she's alone. She'sblurting out her story, and I find it hard to keep up, but got somesense of it the first time that keeps me going with her, trying to puttogether something that's way too clear to her: starts out mutteringabout "couture," a chance to work, "a glimpse, a spark," she soundsavaricious for, "Another chance to start, another mistake," but atleast another, not just one more of the same. But the work she's got"cut cut cut cut turn it out, you know I wish I was cured, I wish Iwas cured! (Turn on turn on turn out.) You make me feel assured. (Turnon turn on turn out.)" Sounds like she's reading directions aloud onthe paren parts, in contrast to louder, earnest, desperate phrases."Assured," as pronounced here, is an implied play on "asheared," as in"cut," asssheared," she's a sheep for a pimp who's assuring her andturning her out like she turns out the couture? Is she whoring for theclothes? But she also is distressed that his parents and sibs arealarmed by her, and she speaks at times like he's her meat, or hersalvation, or both, another drug.The accent figures in too (class, andmusical associations, with Miami Freestyle as well as the above, soenough diva for that, skills-wise) Sort of A Place In The Sun, andshe's Latina cross-projection of poor-boy, disorientingly elevatedCinderfella Montgomery Clift, and his problematic factory girl? (Forsome out-of-his-depth/put-upon preppy pimp who's also running thefamily garment business?) She seems way more trouble than that,because maybe dangerous only to herself, or maybe not. But something'sgot to give, like something's got to get. These are songs in flight,but finding, gathering their own measures of resolution, ofconfrontation, while so much music runs in place, bumping against thepadding of pattern mining, in performance and listening: I know yourider, just get along now. These songs won't settle for that, andwon't let me wave them by either. Their game is "CATCH!" Don Allred